Network Function Virtualization is a term or a name of a proposed architecture of telecom services as published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in a series of documents available from the ETSI website. NFV uses generic hardware platform and software adapted for the generic hardware platform. Thus, NFV creates a network much more flexible and dynamic than a legacy communication network. In NFV-based networks, a Virtual Network Function (VNF) decouples the software implementation of the network function from the infrastructure resources it runs on by virtualization. A network service is based on one or more VNFs and/or Physical Network Functions (PNFs), their interconnections, and chaining definitions. The VNFs can be executed on almost any generic hardware processing facility. Therefore, VNFs may be installed, removed, and moved between hardware facilities, much more easily, less costly and thus, more frequently. The flexibility of the NFV-based network enhances the means available for optimizing the network's capacity and performance.
One of the perceived risks of the use of virtual services is quality. In some cases, a lack of trust in such services may be expected. A user of such services would like to be able to validate that the virtual system works, in an environment of that user.
Another potential issue is scaling of systems including virtual services. A user should know that, when a system or part of a system is scaled the system continues to work correctly.
Testing costs are very high. It is desirable to be able to reduce testing costs but also to enable testing at a production site while an existing system is running. The goal is to be able to show the customer, in the data, that the new/updated virtual services performs according to required criteria and do not cause new problems.
There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.